


Réveille

by Alexander_Writes



Series: Dead Men Fics [2]
Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Erskine POV, Everyone lives - nobody becomes an evil psychopath, First War With Mevolent, Fix-It, Gen, Ignoring Skulduggery Pleasant Part 2, Nonbinary Character, Oneshot, The Dead Men look after each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23257210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexander_Writes/pseuds/Alexander_Writes
Summary: At first the figure is not recognisable. It is wreathed in shadows, walking down the path through the last of the village. But after a moment Erskine recognises the height and gait and feels something within him settle, even as he struggles to understand the image before him.“Skulduggery!” He screams.In which the Dead Men don't let Skulduggery leave without a fight. Set in the middle of the war.Things actually work out.
Relationships: Erskine Ravel & Hopeless (Skulduggery Pleasant), Erskine Ravel & Skulduggery Pleasant
Series: Dead Men Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672435
Comments: 12
Kudos: 35





	Réveille

When Erskine opens his eyes, it appears to be an ordinary day. The tent is as uncomfortable as always – their constant marching makes it impossible to find an acceptable place to sleep each night – and the morning is cold. Erskine lies there for a moment, listening to the distant sounds of horses and of soldiers moving, and then he looks at his companions. Hopeless is still asleep, head hidden beneath their overcoat to dull the noises around them. Saracen is rolling his sleeping mat up, hair messy and movements clumsy.

“Is it before reveille?” Erskine murmurs.

Saracen jumps then shakes his head. The man’s eyes are shadowed.

“You have another half hour,” Saracen says. “Then we have to meet Corrival.”

Erskine groans. He needs a year off. He needs a cup of real tea and a novel and a warm apartment. He needs to be able to stop worrying for his allies, for his friends, for Hopeless. He needs a great number of things, which are all currently unattainable. Instead, he stands and begins to pack away his light possessions, preparing for the move. He leaves his clothing and weaponry out.

“Should we wake Hopeless?” Saracen asks.

Erskine shakes his head, “they haven’t gotten proper sleep for weeks, leave them.”

Saracen nods, then passes a hand over his face. “Do you know if something is bothering them?”

“Apart from,” Erskine gestures vaguely, “All this?”

“Yeah.”

Hopeless doesn’t like crowds of people, though they try and hide it. The bigger the numbers of people around them, the more likely they are to retreat into themselves, or worse hide behind Erskine. This is unfortunate, considering the fact that they have been marching with the army proper for almost a month now. Erskine has an unconfirmed suspicion that this behavior is related to their magic, which Hopeless still refuses to disclose. Erskine is hoping they’ll soon trust him enough to talk about it. He’s been hoping this for centuries now.

“I don't know. They haven’t told me anything,” Erskine admits.

“All right,” Saracen says.

Erskine bundles Hopeless’ possessions together and orders them into his friend’s satchel. He feels emptiness below his own fatigue; he’s going through the motions. Nothing feels real, as if the month of soldiering and fighting and skirmishes has simply been a dream he doesn’t understand. Saracen leaves quietly, in order to find somewhere to wash and dress. The army provides temporary washing rooms across their camp, so that sorcerers that aren’t elementals can still maintain hygiene. It was a good idea; one of Larrikin’s.

Hopeless cries out, then wakes, sitting up. They look around themselves briefly before their shoulders relax. Erskine puts a smile on his face.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Hopeless says, yawns. “Just had a bad dream.”

Erskine sits down, looking at them, the satchel forgotten. “Have you been having those for a while?”

Hopeless’ hair is sticking up everywhere, it’s mussed and adorable. They notice, and try and pat it back down.

“No, not really,” they say, and then they look at Erskine with a tilt to their head. Sometimes Erskine wonders how much Hopeless picks up on what he is feeling, because at the moment their gaze is clear, and understanding, and somewhat sad. “Would you like a hug?”

Erskine pauses, then nods. Hopeless half-rolls off of their nest of coats and blankets and wraps their arms around Erskine. Erskine closes his eyes, hugging them back tightly and without reservation. The next breath he takes is shaky. Hopeless gives the best cuddles, even when it is morning and they are barely awake. For a long moment, the two of them are silent. Then the trumpets sound, and they pull away from each other instinctively.

“Time to face the day,” Hopeless says wryly, and they both go about their separate business preparing for the meeting with Corrival, and leave together.

Deuce did not choose to meet in the War Tent, instead he designated – perhaps at random – a forested site off the main army’s camp. When Hopeless and Erskine arrive most of the other Dead Men are already there, excluding Ghastly and Skulduggery. Deuce is smoking and wearing an old overcoat that Ghastly would hate. He looks up at the two of them and frowns. The clearing they’re meeting in is small, with a stream running through the centre, and sigils carved into the ancient barks of the trees.

“Where were you?”

“Top of the morning to you too,” Erskine says. “We aren’t late.”

Corrival grunts. “Did you see Bespoke or Pleasant?”

“No, why?” Hopeless asks.

“They’ve gone walkabout,” Deuce says.

Erskine frowns. “What makes you say that?”

“Nobody has seen them since their watch last night,” Larrikin says.

Saracen is sprawling with his back against a tree. Larrikin is fidgeting nervously next to Dexter and Anton. In fact, Corrival is the only one of them who looks relatively at ease. Hopeless looks at them all, and sits beside Dexter. Erskine doesn’t feel like sitting, he turns to Deuce.

“Is anyone looking for them?”

Corrival starts to respond, but then Ghastly crashes through the undergrowth. His skin is blood-less, which makes his scars stand out even more. He’s already wearing his armour. Before he can speak Hopeless rushes to him, propping him up with an arm around the middle, and that seems to be enough to stop him from tripping over his words.

“Skulduggery left.”

Erskine feels his thoughts leave his body, for a moment. The moment feels ice-cold and yet distant. There’s a removal to his actions when he looks at the others; they’ve all moved to their feet.

“Ghastly, what do you mean?”

“Skulduggery left; he said he could not stand to be here anymore. He said he wasn’t coming back.”

“Did you try and stop him?” Deuce asks sharply.

“Have you ever tried stopping Skulduggery doing anything?” Ghastly asks, eyes closed, hands shaking. He mustn’t have slept all night. “Of course I did. It didn’t work.”

Larrikin puts a hand to Ghastly’s forehead, as if to take his temperature. It’s the compulsive action of a healer. Above them storm clouds are heading to the east. Erskine forces himself to think; Skulduggery had not seemed himself and yet Erskine feels blindsided by this sudden abandonment of them all. He didn’t even say goodbye.

“Where was he headed?” Erskine asks.

“To the town, I think,” Ghastly says, and points.

“All right,” says Erskine, and starts to run, Dexter following. The others remain with Ghastly and Deuce. Years later Saracen will express regret for this decision. At the time though, it seems necessary to ensure that Ghastly is alright, and to catch up later.

“What are you planning to do?” Dexter asks as they jog through the undergrowth.

“I’m going to stop him,” Erskine says.

“How?”

“No idea.”

Dexter snorts.

Erskine glares at him, and then they’re out of the forest and running faster through the camp. They need to cross the camp in order to reach the village, but they’re fit, and well known enough that people are more likely to get out of their way than obstruct them. Most of the soldiers are doing ordinary activities; eating, cleaning possessions and weapons, packing away their belongings for the long walk ahead. Some of them look at the two Dead Men as they run, others call out greetings. Erskine focuses on avoiding running into anyone, on jumping over horizontal logs and tent rope and other things in his path. He’s not thinking of anything but how urgently he must find his brother before the skeleton makes another stupid decision. He doesn’t think of how Ghastly had had no success; indeed, he pushes that knowledge to the back of his mind. It is only when they reach the bridge leading into the village that Erskine realises he doesn’t know where, exactly, Skulduggery will be.

Dexter takes over. “If Skulduggery wanted to leave, he wouldn’t want us to catch up. He’d want to leave as fast as possible. A teleporter lives here – I talked to her yesterday. Skulduggery was there.”

“Alright,” Erskine nods.

“This way,” Dexter says, jogging into town, veering towards the townhouses on the bank of winding river. An elderly woman with a donkey glares at them as they race past, and Erskine spares her a grin.

The house Dexter is heading for is an old brick one, with a blue painted door and a small garden out the front. Dexter pounds on the door.

“Maria! Maria, are you there?”

In the interim, Erskine looks at the garden as he catches his breath. There are flowerless rose bushes with dark leaves at the doorstep, and a single wooden bench worn with age. The place is nice, but not particularly magical in any noticeable way.

A woman opens the door, she looks tired and somewhat afraid. She is also reasonably pretty; in any other circumstance Erskine would have smiled and introduced himself, but there is no time.

“Dexter, what is happening?”

“Maria,” Dexter says, his shoulders slumping. “Is Skulduggery here?”

“No.” Maria says warily. She doesn’t let go of the doorframe. “He came by half an hour ago.”

Erskine feels physically ill; he almost misses Maria’s next sentence. Skulduggery could be on the other side of the world by now.

“He wanted me to take him to somewhere. I refused.”

“Why did you refuse?” Erskine blurts.

Maria looks at him. Her eyes are dark, and a little cold, she does not appreciate her morning being disrupted by soldiers. Or perhaps, Erskine thinks, she is trying to mask her fear. Her hands are shaking. So is her voice, a little. What did Skulduggery do?

“I did not want to be culpable in whatever he was planning; neither do I wish to be court-martialled for aiding a deserter.”

 _Whatever he was planning_. It’s an ominous way to phrase the current turn of events. Erskine stores that sentence away, to ponder on when there is time.

“He’s not a deserter,” Dexter says, in a tone sharper than he ever uses with civilians. “Do you know where he is now?”

“He headed towards the mountains, on the road I think. He was not happy.”

“All right,” Dexter says, eyes closing. “Half an hour ago, you say?”

Maria’s manners softens at Dexter’s clear distress, she almost moves towards him. “Yes. Be careful; he was very angry.”

“Did he hurt you?” Erskine asks, feeling numb and ill and furious, all at once. What is Skulduggery playing at? Why would he scare a civilian so much, and a young woman at that? Why would he not say goodbye?

“No,” Maria says.

“Good.” Dexter says. “Good. Thank you, Maria. We’ve got to dash.”

Maria nods and looks at them for a moment, before shutting the door. Erskine runs a hand through his hair. Dexter’s expression mirrors Erskine’s internal confusion.

“What is he doing?” Dexter asks. “What possessed him to go on this stupid escapade?”

“He hasn’t been himself for a while,” Erskine says, unaccountably relieved at being able to speak about something upon which he has long kept silent. “Perhaps he cannot bear this war any longer.”

“He didn’t say anything,” Dexter says.

“He isn’t the best at expressing himself sometimes,” Erskine says, with the knowledge of an old friend, and of someone with the exact same problem.

"Come on," Dexter says, and they set off.

They run through the town towards the mountain. It’s a craggy old thing, grey at the top and forested almost down to its base. There is a path, small and made more by the passing feet of sheep than by any human traffic. They go as fast as they are able and do not speak. They do not express their concerns, nor their rising anxiety nor the knowledge that this is not right. Skulduggery is not all right. Skulduggery, they both know intuitively, is about to do something incredibly stupid and they don’t know how to stop him, only that they must.

When they traverse a significant way up the mountain they encounter a ruined village. The remains of stone houses are littered around them. Low grey stone walls covered in bracken and heather stand out against the green. Erskine feels a brief shock; he could have lived in one of these houses, he is just old enough. He pushes that thought away.

“If you were Skulduggery Pleasant, where would you go?” Erskine mutters, scanning the surrounds.

Dexters points.

At first the figure is not recognisable. It is wreathed in shadows, walking down the path through the last of the village. But after a moment Erskine recognises the height and gait and feels something within him settle, even as he struggles to understand the image before him.

“Skulduggery!” He screams.

The figure picks up its pace. The shadows aren’t Erskine’s eyes playing tricks on him, he realises, for even when Skulduggery walks into direct sunlight they remain; twisting across his whole body.

“Skulduggery Pleasant, you absolute _fucking_ twat!” Dexter yells.

Skulduggery freezes, and they’re running again, and Erskine is wheezing because he is not fit enough for running this much. They need to avoid tripping and rolling as they go down the slope, and then Skulduggery turns towards them and Erskine almost pinwheels off the path.

Skulduggery’s eye sockets are filled with swaying shadows. Is he possessed? Can an undead skeleton even become possessed?

“Is that necromancy?” Dexter asks, voice high, and Erskine thinks _oh._

And then they’re facing Skulduggery; who does not move, nor speak, nor respond in any other way to their frantic rushed search for him. The wind picks up, and Erskine bats it aside with a brandished hand so that they can hear each other speak.

“Where are you going?” Erskine asks.

Skulduggery does not respond.

“Skulduggery, what are you doing?” Dexter says, voice angrier than Erskine has heard in a long time.

Yet, Skulduggery does not move.

“You upset Ghastly,” Erskine says, and with that the skeleton shifts and starts to walk away.

“Stop! Christ in a hand-basket, do you ever think about anyone else?” Erskine yells.

This time, when Skulduggery ignores this, Erskine throws up a wall of air before the skeleton. Pleasant pauses an inch from the barrier. The shadows curl against the barrier, almost lazily.

“Let me be,” he says. His voice is rough.

“Not unless you tell us what is happening?” Dexter says. The two men walk slowly towards their friend. “Why are you leaving?”

The silence hangs, less ominous than those blasted shadows.

“Where are you going?” Erskine asks, quietly.

Skulduggery tilts his head. “I do not know. Away from here.”

Dexter inhales. “Look at us.”

“I know you, Skulduggery Pleasant,” Erskine says, when the skeleton does not respond. “I was your best man.”

This makes Skulduggery turn.

“No. You weren’t.”

“No,” Erskine admits, with a shrug and a step forward. “But I would have been, had Ghastly gotten cold feet on the day.”

They both know, without saying, that Ghastly would rather die than miss the wedding of his closest friend. That is the point. Erskine needs to remind Skulduggery of why he began fighting this godforsaken war in the first place. Is bringing up Skulduggery’s wife Augustus – albeit in a roundabout way – a good decision? Erskine does not know.

“As I recall, you and Hopeless were the maids of honour.”

The shadows are calming a little. Erskine smiles. Dexter is very still beside him.

“Hopeless would not like you calling them that,” Erskine warns.

“True. I would advise you not to tell them.” Skulduggery says. The shadows have almost totally disappeared. They will need to do something about those, but not now.

“Come with us,” Erskine offers. He lets go of the wall of air and holds out his hand.

“I cannot,” Skulduggery says, but his voice sounds smoother than before, more animated too. “I am not safe to be around.”

Erskine runs through possible responses. This feels as if he’s talking to a wild animal, or trying to convince a stray cat to let him near it. There are multitudes of ways this could go wrong. Erskine knows he has only one shot at this. Flippancy feels a little too risky.

“Did you ever protest at Anton being with us?” Dexter asks.

“No,” Skulduggery says, reluctantly.

“Or Hopeless?” Erskine adds quietly.

“Of course not,” Skulduggery says, somewhat wry.

“Whatever is happening, you can’t push it away. You can’t hide it from us. We’ve fought for over a century together, Skulduggery. We’ve all done awful things. Whatever is bothering you, we can help.” Dexter says.

Slowly Skulduggery shakes his head, “I think you overestimate your abilities, Dexter Vex.”

“Jesus Christ,” Erskine blurts. “Let us try. How can we help if you do not let us?”

The shadows are moving again, and somewhere through this conversation Erskine has accepted that Skulduggery is a necromancer, somehow, and thus more dangerous than anyone had thought. In the darkest corner of Erskine’s mind he is considering their defensive positions, their advantages and disadvantages, the way Skulduggery is standing. His palms are flat; he can feel the currents of air surrounding them.

“At least talk to Anton, before you leave,” Dexter says practically.

Skulduggery stops, and Erskine’s shoulders slump before his friend even says anything.

“All right,” Skulduggery says.

The shadows creep under his armour, under his ribcage, until he appears utterly himself. Erskine scans their surroundings instinctively, but of course no-one is here to witness this bizarre conversation. The wind picks up, and Skulduggery keeps his hat upon his head with a gust of air. Dexter runs a hand across his face in relief, and the three of them start their walk back to camp, Skulduggery in the middle.

When they arrive back, Ghastly looks at Skulduggery with such relief before embracing him that Erskine hopes it will be enough, somehow, to keep Skulduggery with them. It will not be only that, but it will help. There will be a combination of things that help Skulduggery to stay, but he will.

In another world, a woman in red will seduce Skulduggery to give into his worst side. In this one, Saracen sees her, two weeks after Skulduggery almost disappears. The moment he sees her across the campfire, he knows, and will deal with the situation.

The war ends fifty years before anyone expects it. There will no trips to Prussia nor to Wales. By 1901 the Dead Men will be eight strong, and no longer fighting.

All they needed to do is keep Skulduggery with them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. This is unbetaed, so all feedback is welcome.


End file.
